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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Piano Tutorial for "Oh holy night" in the key of A (Part 2)

Hey everyone! Today is a continuation of the lesson covered last time for playing "Oh holy night" in the key of A. This is the second section that we will be examining. So if you haven't yet looked at the first section, you can click here... If you have been following this lesson, you know that we broke it up into 4 parts, so we will continue by looking at the next 4 parts starting with part 5.

Here is an example of the entire song so you can put it into context, just in case you forgot how it sounded:

So here is the numbers and scale for the key of A:

A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1

Here you can watch the section being explained:

Part 5

So in part 5, we start off with "A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices (5-4, 3-2-1), for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn (3-3b, 2-4, 3-2-1) ". The first chord is the 5 chord and it's over an E-Bass to cover "A thrill". You can play it like this:

Next let's go to the 4 chord, but before playing it, you can add a quick passing chord like this:

You'll notice that this is just a tritone that's inverted in both hands

And now for the 4 chord:

These two chords played over 4, covers "of hope". Now let's move to "the weary world rejoices". The first chord is on the 3, which is a C#-Bass. The chord looks like this:

Play an E melody note before playing the chord above

The next chord is over the 2 which is a B-Bass. This chord covers "world" :

You can also add an E melody note before playing the chord

And then the next chord is over the 1 which will be the last chord for the first melody line. You can play it like this:

This chord covers "rejoices"

Now you can play 2 chords in a chromatic way as passing chords to get to the 2 chord, This is before you play "For yonder". The chords moves from the 3-3b-2 which is C#-C-B bass notes. The first chord is:

The next chord is on the 3b which is a C-Bass. It looks like this:

This chord get's played over "For" of the melody line

The next chord is over 2, which is a B-Bass and covers "yonder". This can be played like this:

You can add an A melody note before playing the B chord

Next you can play a 4 chord as previously played to cover "breaks" of the melody line. Just to review that chord again:

Remember you can always add the tritone in both hands

as a passing before playing the 4 chord

(look at 4 chord previously covered)

Now to look at "a new and glorious morn". Now can you play that same 3-2-1 as previously covered, so just refer to that chords in this part

That's it for part 5, now we can continue to the chorus which will consist of part 6,7 & 8.

Part 6

In this part we will look at "fall on you knees (3-6-7-3), oh hear (3-3b-2), the angels voices (3-6-6b)"The first chord is a 3 passing chord before you start with the 6 chord. This is over a C#-Bass and can be played like this:

Now you can play the 6 chord to cover "fall" of the melody line. This is over a F#-Bass. It can be played like this:

Then you move to the 7 chord which is over a G#-Bass, to cover "on" of the melody line. It can be played like this:

The 7 chord is just a passing to get to the 3 chord, which is a C#-Bass. It covers, "your knees" . Here is the 3 chord:

After this chord, you can play two passing chords from 3-3b-2 in the same way we covered it previously. The first chord is still over 3 with the C#-Bass:

You can add two melody notes B C# before playing the chord

The next chord moves down to the 3b which is a C-Bass, and can be played like this:

Now we are at the 2 chord, which is a B-Bass to cover "oh hear" of the melody line. That chord can be played like this:

You can add a melody note A before playing the chord

Now you have to play a 7-3-6 progression to cover "the angels voices". The first chord is over the 7, which is a G#-Bass and can be played like this:

Add two melody notes B and C before playing the chord

Before moving to the 3 chord, you can play a right hand major chord still over the G#-Bass like this:

Now you can play the 3 chord, which a C#-Bass:

You should end up with a 6 chord, when the melody is at "voices" in the melody line. The 6 chord is a F#-Bass:

You can flat this chord afterwards by playing a diminished chord over a F-Bass that looks like this:

That's it for part 6. Let's continue...

Part 7

In part 7 we carry on with "oh night (5-5b-5#-6), divine (2) , oh night (5), when Christ was born" (5-1).

So the first chord in this melody line is over the 5, which is an E-Bass:

This chord will cover, "oh night"

Then you play two passing chords before getting to "divine" over the 5b and 5# which is D# and F respectively:

Now you can play the 6 chord to cover "divine". This is over a F#-Bass:

Another passing chord can be used to get to the 5 destination, and that is over the 2, which is a B-Bass:

Feel free to add melody notes before the chord:G# A B

So far so good, the last 2 chords for part 7 is on the 5 before resolving back to the 1 chord. This is to cover "oh night, when Christ was" of the melody line. By the way, 5 is over an E-Bass, and can be played like this:

This cover "oh night"

The second chord over 5 is to cover "when Christ was", and it can be played like this:

Then the very last chord resolves back to the 1, which is an A-Bass to cover "born" of the melody line:

Part 8

We've come to last part of this entire lesson! Almost at the finish line...So the last part of the song is "oh night (5b-5), devine (4-3-5-1-4), oh night (5b-5), oh night devine (5-1)". The first chord is over the 5b, which is D#-Bass and it is a passing chord to get to 5:

Then you play the 5 chord, to cover "night", like this:

And then the 4, which is a D-Bass. The thing with playing the 4 passing chord is that you have two ways of playing that chord, depending on what you want to achieve. In the example that I played, there were two times I played the chord and I changed it slightly to create something different. I'll will show both versions now. The first time, was when I play the normal 4 passing chord, looking like this:

You should be familiar with this chord by now,

the bass can also play a G#-Bass instead of the D

As seen above, this chord is a common passing for when you have to go to the 3 chord afterwards. Feel free to add the tritone passing as covered earlier to make it sound fuller. The next variation is where you can invert the left hand tritone and do a little melody walk up in your right hand before playing the chord. The walk up notes will be G# A A# and then chord:

After this chord, you should move to the 3 chord which is a C#-Bass and it will cover "devine" of the melody line. You can play it like this:

Now to do a progression to get back to 4, which is a common 5-1-4 progression. The 5-1 is just passing chords, to get to 4. The first chord is over the 5 which is an E-Bass and looks like this:

Next, you have the 1 chord, which is an A-Bass:

And then the destination chord is the 4 chord, which is a D-Bass:

This chord is still over "divine" of the melody line

The next chord is a passing to get to the 5 chord-it is a 5b chord, which is a D#-Bass and will cover "oh" of the melody line:

There's a slight change in the right hand notes compared

to the 5b of previously

Almost done...the next chord is the 5 chord, which is an E-Bass and covers "night" of the melody line. Here is how it looks:

After this chord, you remain on the 5, and play this chord before ending on the 1:

This chord covers part of "night" and part of "divine"

And finally, the last chord is on the 1 which is an A-Bass can be played like this:

And that's it! Awesome, this brings us to the end of this lesson. To get the most out of this tutorial, you should look at the example I added so you can get an understanding of where exactly these chords are played. Most of the chords are melody driven that 's I covered it accordingly.

Note also, that not only are you learning how to play Oh holy night, but you have gained some two hand chord voicings that you can incorporate in other songs as well, if you take the time to gain the understanding behind what I played. Look for patterns and similarities and try it in other songs.

Thanks again for your support, and if you liked this lesson, feel free to share, comment and most important, dont forget to subscribe to my email list.

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